At Ease
by countessofbiscuit
Summary: Ahsoka teaches Rex about headgear maintenance, and they learn one or two things about each other in the process. A/N: Crossposted from Ao3. Rexsoka one-shot.


"Do you need to see Kix? Your scratching is making _me_ itchy."

"Sorry," Ahsoka replied, listing back towards her captain as the battalion fell out of formation. "None of his creams can fix this."

"What is it?" Rex craned forward to examine her montrals, his chin upturned slightly in case the answer was disgusting.

Ahsoka bent her head, obligingly, content not to see his reaction.

"You're … peeling."

"Yeah, it's gross, I know. They're growing faster now." A little bounce of her shoulders to emphasize her lekku left a flaky residue all over her top. The right one now had a good half-inch on the left, and Ahsoka wondered if they'd ever be visibly even again.

"So you're not sick?" Rex peered a little closer as they walked, now that he wasn't looking at something she'd picked up in the Mimbanese mud.

"Nah, they just do this. Molt. Shed. Itch like a banthaf—" She broke off to give a section under her beads some violent treatment with the hydrospanner she'd been carrying around all morning.

Rex had noticed that. But he hadn't picked up on her dandruff days before, and it bothered him. He was supposed to be aware of physiological tempos like this. It was part of his unusual Jedi attaché job spec—part of his _own_ specs. Having two to mind was not, in his exacting opinion, a good enough excuse.

"Is this the first time?" he asked, trying not to betray his ignorance and uncomfortable with the idea of apologizing for it.

"No, I just haven't had time to get it sorted." There was a war on, after all.

Rex frowned. "Haven't had time? But you're miserable."

"It's … a really involved process—takes forever."

"Will this at least help the itch?" Rex plucked a tube from his belt box. It had worked for crotch rot, and he'd have sawed himself in half if he'd taken up with a hydrospanner during that nightmare.

"Not for long," Ahsoka replied. "And I can't just lather up here, Rex." The corridor was empty _now_ , but anyone might walk by and get the wrong idea. "It'd be obscene."

The commander had spent four hours rasping herself with a metal stick and shedding all over the ship while muttering words that sounded like Hutt genitals looked, but there was apparently a firm line at public moisturizing. Rex had to respect that.

"Then let's get it sorted," he said. "Now."

" _Orders_ , captain?" Ahsoka crossed her arms, archly.

"Volunteering. I know it's the sort of thing only sergeants get stiff over, but as my commanding officer you can pretend to be impressed?"

"If you're willing to help—and you do it half as well as Padmé—I might be more than just impressed."

Ahsoka winked, Rex flushed in spite of himself, and just like that, it seemed they were in for some textbook fraternization. Neither was too sure, but both produced reasons to justify pushing jetpack shakedown and duty rostering until the morning so they could find out.

It still wasn't clear when Rex rocked up to Ahsoka's cabin later. She'd removed her akul teeth and felt kind of naked, making her distractedly self-conscious, and he was suddenly uneasy about fitting his hand into a gritty nanowave mitt and taking a rotary device to his CO's head. But Rex had never known a gentle learning curve for new gear, and nothing here looked explosive.

Except the aforementioned CO.

She'd traded in her spanner for a steel brush, and at times could hardly hear herself as she walked Rex through the program:

First came a scrub with the exfoliating mitt—gentler on the horns, firmer on the tails, like skinning a womprat—but he wasn't supposed to go past _these_ lines—it'd get dusty, so he should put the sheet over his legs—then he needed to wipe everything down with the damp chamize cloth—no, he couldn't have one for drying unmentionables in the field, they cost like 300 credits a pop and were made from the lethris of flying Alderaani goats or something—the chamize was followed by a deep moisturizing session using this jar of jellied blubber—why did it smell like a longneck's armpit? she didn't know, she'd never gotten that close to a Kaminoan, but probably because it was made with beldon fat—sustainably sourced, of course, the whole kit was a gift from Padmé—if he kicked off his boots off, she'd put some on his calluses and his feet would feel as smooth as a senator's backside in the morning—again, he should stop at _these_ lines—once she'd oiled up, she'd need to heat treat her head for a couple hours—since he'd kindly pointed out her freaky forehead, he could be the one to go pop open that wonky panel down the corridor and grab the wet towel she'd draped over the pipe—they could watch limmie or something—maybe if he took back the forehead comment, she could stream the Galactic All-Stars game and save him some funny money, caf patches and one grovelling call to CLINT for the HoloNet access—

"Scouring the dead layer off is pretty much the final step, and the hardest. The jelly does most of the work, but you'll need to take breaks," Ahsoka said, holding up the rotary device that could've passed for a Nubian blaster if not for the bushy metal attachment, one of its many interchangeable heads. "But I'll come to that."

"Sounds painful," said Rex. It sounded _dangerous_ to somebody who still had nightmares about taking a fastcutter to a bucket when one newly brevetted and stupidly curious commander got her head stuck and no amount of bantha butter was gonna get her out again.

"It's all dead, I can't feel it until you hit the new stuff. I trust your trigger finger." She made finger guns at Rex's heart, which was level with hers from where he sat on her cabin table.

"These lines," said Rex, pointing at where her white headtails gave way to blue at the tips—or were they blue with white stripes? "You keep pointing them out. Why?"

"Are you my betrothed? Or my mother? Or a shaman?"

Rex blanched. Absolutely not—he could never live up to the first; he had no experience with the second; and although known to commune with the caf machine, he was no spiritualist. He shook his head.

"Then don't go past them," Ahsoka replied. "Shilian custom says I can't be held responsible for my actions if you do. Didn't they cover anything about social grooming on Kamino?"

"No. Guess they thought we'd never get close enough to civvies to need it."

"Not even between yourselves?"

There were a lot of social _other_ things, but Rex wouldn't have called Kamino communal. It was too competitive for that. He thought about it for a while, until her hands on his knees reminded him of something.

"We used to keep each other up at night, moaning about the pain in our legs. Couldn't really hear it in the pods, they had sound dampeners. But during an exercise or out in the field? It drove everyone crazy—especially if you were the unlucky sod run down a motthole with someone whose shins decided to grow two sizes that day. We learned fast that no one was really watching us out there. Yeah, they were using live ordnance, it was easy to get popped, or see half your squad dropped … but we could at least touch each other, rub your brother's pain away for a while, and not get voltage up your ass and out your ears."

While Rex was recalling the screams of shells, Ahsoka blinked back tears, trying not to imagine what the cries of a youngling Rex or Fives or Scooter or Patch or any of the boys sounded like. Once the Force heard it, she'd have an earworm that burrowed in her tips and stayed there.

"Does that count?" Rex asked innocently, when the silence had started to make a third in the room.

Ahsoka nodded without looking up. "Yeah. It counts."

She almost dismissed him, then—officially and proper-like, with an apology for tasking him with something so frivolous. _Most_ of her head was within reach, and maybe if she retrofitted a droid or just asked Skyguy to swipe her out and beg a visit from Master Ti—

But then Rex gently placed his gloved hand on hers, conscious that some shells could be defused before they went off.

"So, when can I become the first captain to earn his grooming quals?"


End file.
